The way she said my name took me back; forced me into a time before corporate high rises and late-night business calls to Tokyo, Milan, and Paris. A time when we were both younger, and life was a hell of a lot simpler…
“What do you mean, you’ve never had a Nathan’s hot dog?”
Mackenzie grinned at me, shrugging her shoulders. Her loose black curls billowed in the coastal wind as we trekked through Coney Island, and she laughed, tucking the thick strands behind her ear.
It was her first time here. She’d never been to Coney Island before—which, fine, there were plenty of people who lived in New York who’d never visited the island or any of the other cheesy tourist traps in the city—but as far as I was concerned, she had no excuse at all for never having had a Nathan’s hot dog. You could get one on any street corner with a vendor.
“Well, that’s changing today,” I promised her. “Come on.”
I grabbed her hand, pulling her through the thick Coney Island crowd. She was a new addition to the group, a transfer student on scholarship to the overly prestigious private school that Grant, his current girlfriend Genevieve, and I went to. She was nothing like the girls I was used to—unencumbered by the status quo, family money, and the need to compete with every other blue blood in New York to justify her existence.
We found the Nathan’s booth and joined the line of people gathered outside. I bounced on the balls of my feet as we waited.
“You really want me to try this, don’t you?” she asked with a laugh. “What kind of fancy hot dogs are these, anyway?”
“Only the best you’ll ever eat in your entire life,” I insisted.
She leaned up, resting her hand on the back of my neck and pressing her cherry-glossed lips to mine.
My hands went to her waist, pulling her closer to deepen the kiss from a quick peck to something more. Like always, she melted against me.
With Mackenzie, I felt on top of the world, hopeful, happy, and excited about the future. Much more than I ever did as the son of Arthur Prince—tech mogul, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. This flirty, artistic girl who’d come from the ‘wrong side’ of the figurative tracks according to my peers, was anything but wrong for me.
God… I loved her.
&nb
sp; “Hey, hey, hey, lover boy. Get a room!” Grant knocked into us playfully, pulling Genevieve, a busty blonde who was currently busting out of her tank top, along with him.
I rolled my eyes, breaking away from Mackenzie’s lips reluctantly. Leave it to the theatre kids to make a theatrical entrance.
“You’re one to talk.” I draped my arm over her shoulders as we all moved up in the line and nodded to the deep purple bruise on Genevieve’s neck. “You’re not subtle at all.”
Grant shrugged. “Hey, you gotta live when you’re young!”
“And we do a whooole lot of living,” Genevieve piped up, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
We all laughed, the noise mingling with the sounds of tourists and the calls of gulls overhead. It was the beginning of senior year, and we had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
It was the height of our lives, and nothing to could go wrong.
“Oh—shit!”
The exclamation pulled me out of my sudden, vivid memory. I blinked, refocusing on Mackenzie in time to see her back away from me, looking about as freaked out as if she’d just seen a ghost.
She must’ve forgotten her cart was behind her.
“Mack—”
I rose from my desk, but it was too late.
She plowed into the large cart at full speed. The thing rocked on its wheels, and for a second, everything seemed suspended in time.
Then it toppled over. Cleaning bottles and rags went everywhere, and the metal cart clattered to the ground, making a ridiculous amount of noise even on the thick carpet.
She went down with it, somehow managing to get her ass wedged in the middle section where towels were usually stored. Her legs kicked as she tried to dislodge herself. Her body was basically folded in half like a sandwich, with her knees shoved up to her chest as she fought to free herself from the rogue cart.
“Fucking cocknuggets!”